


Slow Simmer

by SuburbanSun



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Awkward Romance, Cooking, F/M, First Dates, Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine, Getting to Know Each Other, Meet-Cute, Non-SHIELD AU, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9811484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuburbanSun/pseuds/SuburbanSun
Summary: A cooking class, a romantic night, and a pair of total strangers. Is it a recipe for love?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ughfitz (wokemeup)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wokemeup/gifts).



> Written for the always wonderful @ughfitz for @thefitzsimmonsnetwork's Fitzsimmons Secret Valentine! I was glad to get matched to you, Racquel-- I hope you like it! Happy Valentine's Day!

Fitz frowned at the sign resting on an easel outside the community center. _Italian Romance Cooking Class - Rm. 302_ , it read in a swirling script. The little red heart that dotted the second “I” in “Italian” only caused his frown to deepen.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered. What on _Earth_ had Hunter signed him up for?

“Are you here for the class?” A short, curly-haired woman a bit older than Fitz poked her head out the door. “Because we don’t have all day. Your partner’s been waiting on you.”

Flummoxed, Fitz followed the woman into the Center and down the hallway. He thought back to the conversation he’d had with his roommate just a few days prior.

_“Here ya go, mate. A very belated or very early birthday present,” Hunter said, thrusting an envelope at Fitz where he sat at their kitchen table. Setting his spoon in his bowl of cereal, he opened it with a healthy dose of suspicion._

_“My birthday’s in August,” he responded, sliding a thick piece of cardstock out of the envelope._

_“Then happy half-birthday!”_

_Fitz read the card aloud. “This voucher entitles you to one (1) class session in the Community Center’s continuing education program.” He looked up at Hunter, raising an eyebrow at the smug expression he wore. “You do know I have a PhD, right?”_

_“You do know it’s dinnertime, right?” Hunter said, gesturing to the Froot Loops getting soggy in Fitz’s bowl. “There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to learn to cook for himself. And for you, my friend, that time is next Tuesday at seven sharp.”_

_“You signed me up for a cooking class? On Valentine’s Day?”_

_“Yeah, but don’t worry about that-- it’s all about cooking for one.” Hunter grabbed a beer from the fridge and popped it open easily, taking a long swig. “I worry about you fending for yourself during the cold, lonely nights I spend at Bobbi’s. But don’t worry-- we can still order pizza and drink beers on the nights I’m home, even after you’re a master chef. Can’t mess with tradition.”_

“Well, there she is,” the older woman said, pulling Fitz from his thoughts. She pointed to a table near the front of the room, where a brown-haired woman sat alone.

As he scanned the rest of the room, he immediately noticed that she was the _only_ person there alone-- each of the other tables were occupied by couples in various stages of canoodling. One elderly couple near the back was even feeding each other ingredients from the mise en place laid out before them. _Surely_ that’s _against protocol_.

“You’re almost 15 minutes late, buddy. And on _Valentine’s_ Day, no less. You’re just lucky she’s patient,” said the older woman, thumping him on the arm before leaving his side to make her way to the front of the room. She was, evidently, the instructor.

Fitz hesitated, then wove around the tables to take the only empty seat, the one next to the brunette. He gave her a tentative smile as he draped his jacket over the back of his chair and fumbled to tie on the apron that had been folded and waiting for him. When she met his eyes, she looked just as bewildered as he felt, and that made him feel the tiniest bit at ease.

“Okay, turtledoves, eyes up front! I’m LT Koenig, but that’s Chef Koenig to you. Now, I know you all signed up for a romantic evening, but this is supposed to be a _learning_ experience, so don’t be surprised when I whip you all into shape.”

“Are you, by any chance, currently feeling like you’re in the entirely wrong place?” whispered the brunette as the instructor went on. Fitz let out a relieved chuckle.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so out of place in my life, to be honest.”

The woman giggled, then held out a hand for him to shake. “I’m Jemma Simmons. And you are…? Besides my apparent long-time romantic partner looking to spice up our love life, that is.”

He shook her hand. “Fitz. Leo Fitz, but just Fitz is fine.”

Jemma grinned, and he couldn’t help but notice the way her smile seemed to light up her whole face. “Alright, just Fitz it is.”

“I hear a lot of talking, but not a lot of chopping!” Chef Koenig called from the front of the class. Fitz grimaced, then surveyed the ingredients and cooking tools set out before them.

“Guess we should’ve been listening,” he said, picking up what he could only assume was the correct knife. “Are you any good at this? Cooking?”

Jemma gently pulled the knife from his hand and replaced it with another, smaller one. “I can hold my own, I suppose. I’ve never set fire to an oven trying to make a souffle or anything, but to be honest, I simply don’t have a lot of _time_ for cooking.” She gestured for him to begin dicing the shallots, and pulled a few cloves of garlic onto her own cutting board. “That’s why my friend signed me up for this class. And threatened to make me regret it if I didn’t show up. She’s a bit scary, actually,” she mused, mincing the garlic neatly.

“I got roped into this by my roommate. Only he said it was a--” Fitz just caught himself before telling her he’d thought he was attending a ‘cooking for one’ class. No need to showcase precisely how pathetic his personal life was to a woman he’d just met. “Well. Not _this_.”

They both looked around the room at the other couples. One pair in the front row was barely paying attention to their food, too busy making googly eyes at each other. A man near the back had his arms around his partner from behind, and they were slicing vegetables together as one. Fitz winced as he watched the knife blade narrowly miss both of their fingers.

Jemma clucked her tongue disapprovingly at the sight. “We may be the only ones lucid enough to make it through the class alive.”

  


\---

  


Twenty minutes later, a light sauce simmered away atop their table’s built-in stove, and Fitz felt himself begin to relax. Chef Koenig’s assistant, a stocky man who’d identified himself as Sous Chef Koenig, had deposited a bottle of wine in front of each pair-- part of the price of admission, apparently. Jemma had poured each of them a glass.

“So, Jemma. What do you do that keeps you too busy to cook?”

“Oh, I’m a biochemist. I run the research labs down at the University,” she answered while measuring out orzo. “Right now, we’re pursuing a massive grant that would fund most of our projects for the whole year, so it’s been a bit more time-consuming than usual.” She shrugged. “But still always worthwhile.”

Fitz blinked at her, his knife poised in mid-air. “That’s-- um….”

Jemma pinned him with a knowing look. “A bit boring? I do hear that quite a lot. I suppose it can _seem_ that way on the outside, but honestly, Fitz--”

“No!” He set the knife down on the tabletop. “That’s fascinating, actually. Is it the Hoffman grant?”

She looked up from the orzo in surprise. “How did you know?”

“I head up engineering at VitaTech. Our biochem department is pursuing it, too.” With a show of glancing around the room, he leaned in and whispered, “They won’t get it, of course. Our bio team lead is mediocre at best. Always been a weak spot for VT.”

A smile crept across Jemma’s face, and she poured the measured orzo into the pot of just-boiling water on the stove. “Good to know.”

They were both silent for a moment, as Fitz tried to adjust to this new bit of information. He cleared his throat.

“So-- wow. What are the odds that we’re both in such related fields?”

She took a thoughtful sip of her wine. “Hmm. Let’s see. There were 6.2 million scientists employed in the U.S. according to a recent Congressional research report, so…”

He’d excitedly started to do the math in his head, but was interrupted by Sous Chef Koenig, who handed him a red rose from a basket full of them. “For your Valentine,” he said, winking before moving on to the next table. Fitz twirled the stem between his fingers for a moment, then bashfully held it out to Jemma.

“Happy Valentine’s Day?” he said with a wince.

Laughing, she took the rose, subtly sniffing it before placing it in the empty bud vase in the center of the table.

“I’m sure it’s not quite your idea of the perfect Valentine’s Day,” he said, taking a tomato and beginning to dice it for the bruschetta. “Cooking with an utter stranger, surrounded by sickeningly lovey-dovey couples.”

“On the contrary. The last date I went on on Valentine’s Day was an utter disaster. He nodded off at the table while I was telling him about my research.” She wrinkled her nose. “Ironic, really, as I didn’t find him the least bit interesting, and yet _I_ still managed to stay awake.”

Fitz shook his head. “Sounds like you dodged a bullet there.”

She grinned. “You know, I think I did.”

“Well, if we’re being honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had a date on Valentine’s Day before,” Fitz admitted. “I mean, I’ve had dates on other days,” he rushed to explain. “Just-- not on February 14th itself. What I guess I’m saying is-- this _might_ be the best Valentine’s Day date I’ve had.”

Jemma nudged him with her elbow, head tilted playfully to one side. “I only _maybe_ win by default?”

“Well, last year my roommate was broken up with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, and we ordered pizzas and played video games,” he said. “So you’ve got some competition.”

She just laughed and shook her head, and he was at once struck by the thought that not only had this evening gone better than any of his non-existent Valentine’s Day dates, but that it had gone better than most of the dates he’d been on in his life, period. It sent a flutter of nerves through his stomach. He sipped his wine in hopes of quelling them. It may not have been a real date, but suddenly he _really_ didn’t want to screw it up.

  


\---

  


After their bruschetta was ready, they were given permission to eat the antipasti as the herbed chicken roasted in the oven.

“So, ah,” Fitz began after he’d swallowed a bite. He brushed crumbs onto his apron. “You didn’t have to cancel any big Valentine’s plans when your friend signed you up for this class, did you?”

Jemma finished her own bite and swiped a dash of tomato juice from the corner of her mouth with one thumb, drawing his gaze. “I’d forgotten it was Valentine’s Day until I got here, to be honest. It’s just another Tuesday to me.”

“Me too,” he said, his voice sounding a little more breathless than he’d prefer. “Maybe--”

Just then, Sous Chef Koenig appeared in front of their table with a pair of candlesticks and a book of matches. He grimaced apologetically.

“These were supposed to be set up and lit on all the tables before everyone arrived,” he explained. “But I got sucked into a Twitter war with somebody named @CountFrackula about the best season of Battlestar Galactica.” He shrugged as he tried to light a match, striking it once, then twice. “You know how it goes.”

Fitz and Jemma both nodded politely, and the silence stretched on as Koenig scowled down at his matches.

“These darn things,” he said, chuckling awkwardly. Finally, he got one to work, and lit both candles. “Enjoy a little mood lighting, you two lovebirds.”

When Fitz met Jemma’s eyes, they were dancing with mirth. He was glad she appreciated the humor in their situation, because otherwise, he was certain he’d want to dissolve into the tile floor. The fluorescent lights dimmed (apparently Sous Chef Koenig had made his rounds, and this was now a candlelit cooking class) and Jemma laughed out loud.

“Now I’m just waiting for the romantic music to start playing. What do you think it’ll be? Sinatra? Enya? Buble?”

“I’d sooner go for Weird Al myself,” Fitz said before he could think twice. He didn’t have long to berate himself for being an utter nerd, though.

“Oh, me too,” said Jemma, nodding emphatically. “One of the great songwriters of our time.” She picked up the last piece of bruschetta and offered it to him, before leaning down to check on their chicken.

He could say without a doubt now that this was the greatest-- if weirdest-- Valentine’s Day of Fitz’s life.

  


\---

  
  


“Desserts are for the weak, but I’m told this is a romantic one,” announced Chef Koenig from the front of the class. “Chocolate-covered strawberries!”

“Not much cooking involved in that one, eh?” muttered Jemma, earning her a laugh from Fitz. She grinned at him, and he felt his stomach swoop. It seemed he’d gone through the entire process of developing a crush on a complete stranger in the span of two hours.

“I figure you all know how to heat up chocolate, dip in some fruit and stash it in the fridge for a few hours, so we’ve done the legwork for you on this one,” Koenig continued.

“Aka they know everybody in here’s eager to get on with their Valentine’s _night_ plans by now,” Fitz whispered to Jemma, before widening his eyes. “Everybody _else_ , I mean. The couples. The _real_ couples.”

She just shrugged, an unidentifiable gleam in her eye, and held a finger to her lips to shush him. Sous Chef Koenig entered with two trays of chocolate-covered strawberries, followed by-- an exact copy of Sous Chef Koenig, also carrying two trays of strawberries? Fitz narrowed his eyes at the sight, until the plate of berries placed in front of him stole his attention.

Four fat strawberries were artfully arranged, each covered in a different blend of rich, dark chocolate, white chocolate, or milk chocolate. On the plate, a trio of hearts had been drawn in a shimmering red sauce. They looked delicious. Fitz reached for one.

“Ah, ah, ah, not so fast,” the voice of Sous Chef Koenig-- one of them, at least-- rang out behind him. The man poked his head in between Fitz and Jemma. “Not like that.” He gestured to one of the other couples, who were sitting facing each other, arms intertwined as they lovingly held the berries up to each other’s mouths.

“Ah, no, I don’t think--”

“We don’t have to--”

“--a ridiculous way to--”

“--incredibly inefficient and messy to boot--”

Koenig just shrugged. “Tonight’s all about romance, guys. Don’t let Cupid down.”

Once he’d walked away, Fitz turned back to Jemma, scratching awkwardly at the side of his jaw. “We don’t need to--”

“No, of course, don’t be silly.” She picked up a strawberry and held it up to her own mouth, taking a small bite. He watched as her eyes slipped shut, her face the picture of pure decadence. The sight made his breath quicken, and he picked up a strawberry of his own with which to distract himself.

“Fitz, this one is _incredible_. I don’t know what mystery ingredient they lace this chocolate with, but it’s the best I’ve ever tasted.” She held it out to him as he chewed the bite he’d taken of his own berry. “You _have_ to try it.”

Swallowing, he did as she said, taking a bite of hers. She was right-- it was delicious.

“Mm-- try this one, though, it’s got a hint of _orange_ I think--” He held the strawberry out to her and she took a delicate bite. As she did, Sous Chef Koenig passed by the front of their table, giving them a thumbs up.

“See?” he said. “Now that’s _romance_.”

Fitz felt his cheeks heating up, and was suddenly thankful for the dim lighting in the room. Jemma cleared her throat and set the remaining stem of her berry back on the plate. They were both silent for a long moment.

“What _do_ they put in their chocolate?” Fitz asked finally. “Some sort of addictive narcotic?”

Jemma laughed a little breathily. “I don’t know, but I’d love to analyze it in the lab.”

The tension broken, Fitz picked up one of the remaining strawberries and took a bite. There was no need to waste chocolate, and it really _was_ delicious.

  


\---

  


“Bye. G’night. Thanks for coming. G’night. See ya.” Chef Koenig, both Sous Chef Koenigs, and somehow, an _additional_ Koenig stood in a receiving line by the front of the room as the couples trailed out once the class had ended.

Fitz and Jemma both hung back. Fitz untied his apron with deliberate slowness, not terribly eager for the night to end. Finally, though, it had to. She shouldered her purse, he slipped into his jacket, and they shuffled out of the classroom and down the hall of the Community Center.

“Do you feel like a professional chef now?” Fitz ventured as they meandered out into the cool night. “Because I do.”

“Oh, certainly. I could whip up an entire ten-course meal with my eyes closed.”

He chuckled, and his phone buzzed in his pocket. “Sorry,” he muttered absently as he pulled it out to look.

_[LANCE HUNTER 10:04 PM]: So???? How’d it go????_

He rolled his eyes. “It’s my friend who signed me up for the class. Wants to know how well his prank went over.”

“Tell him it went perfectly well, thanks.”

Fitz glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. He wondered what she meant by that. Before he could assess her intention, though, her own phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her purse.

“Oh, that makes two of us, then. It’s my friend, Bobbi, asking me how everything went.”

Fitz froze, but Jemma kept walking, her eyes on the message she was composing on her phone.

“Went… great… Bobbi. Gourmet… meals… from now on.”

“Wait. How do you know Bobbi?”

Jemma turned around at his voice, frowning. “How do I know Bobbi? Do _you_ know Bobbi?”

He held up his phone for her to see. “Hunter.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You know Hunter?”

“ _You_ know Hunter?”

She rolled her eyes and took a few steps back toward him. They were now standing in the middle of the parking lot of the Community Center, nearly empty at 10 o’clock on a Tuesday. Fitz shifted forward a bit.

“Now we’re just talking in circles,” she said. “Bobbi is one of my dearest friends. She’s the one who signed me up for this class, telling me I needed to get out of the house more, to do more than just work.”

“And Hunter is my roommate. And the one who signed me up, too, telling me it was a ‘cooking for one’ class.” He suppressed a grimace at the admission, but really, there were bigger things afoot here.

Jemma stared at him for a long moment before letting out a laugh, one that made her bow her head and rock forward so that the top of it almost grazed his chest. When she met his eyes again, she was grinning. “ _You’re_ the friend of Hunter’s that Bobbi’s been trying to set me up with for the better part of a year.”

He ran a hand along his face-- _really_ , he was a bloody genius; he should have realized this earlier. “And _you’re_ Bobbi’s friend who they’ve both been bugging me about for months.”

She giggled, and it set him off into a fit of laughter, which in turn made her laugh even harder. There they stood, in the middle of an empty parking lot, swaying closer to each other with each peal of laughter. Once they’d calmed down, Fitz was exceedingly aware of how close they were standing.

“Did they really have to go to these lengths to set us up?” she asked.

He shrugged one shoulder. “Apparently we’re a bit stubborn.” One corner of his mouth quirked up. “We’re quite the pair.”  

“Well,” she began, looking down, then back up at him, her eyes sparkling in the dim light from the streetlights. “I, for one, am glad they did.”

He licked his lips and took a shaky breath. “Me too.”

Jemma took one tiny step forward, and now they were close enough for their shoes to touch. “Fitz?” she whispered, one hand drifting up along his arm to rest on his shoulder. Instinctively, his hands flew to her waist before he had time to second-guess himself.

“Yeah?”

She leaned up, and just before their lips met, she whispered, “Best Valentine’s date ever.”

She tasted of berries, chocolate, and the sweetness of possibility, with maybe a hint of Italian romance thrown in.

**Author's Note:**

> Want to hang out on Tumblr? I'm unbreakablejemmasimmons over there.


End file.
